Basil Rathbone

The Spy Who Disguised Himself as a Tree

Basil Rathbone was born in Johannesburg in 1892, but his composure was strictly British. Before stepping onto a film set, he had to survive the trenches of World War I. In 1916, he convinced his superiors to let him patrol the no man's land by day, and to do so he literally camouflaged himself as a tree.

That camouflage of foliage allowed him to gather vital intelligence on German positions. For that mix of recklessness and theatrics, he was awarded the Military Cross for valor. Rathbone always saw acting as a matter of technical precision rather than unbridled emotion.

After the conflict, he returned to the stage to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. There he learned to project a voice that would later become his greatest asset in radio and sound film. But London theater soon felt too small for him, and in 1912 he set off for the United States on a tour that would change his destiny.

That tree disguise saved his life.

The Greatest Swordsman in the Industry

In Hollywood, he specialized in roguish gentlemen and villains of razor-sharp elegance. His lanky frame and aquiline profile made him perfect for period productions. In 1935, he starred in Captain Blood alongside Errol Flynn and proved that no one handled a sword like him.

He was the finest fencer in town, yet he always lost his duels on contract. He trained for weeks so the choreography would look real and dangerous. In The Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938, he faced Flynn again in one of the most famous fight scenes in film history.

Rathbone often complained that his characters always ended up skewered by a sword or sent off a cliff. Despite his technical talent, studios saw him as the ideal villain. His salary at the time already hovered around 5,000 dollars a week during the most demanding shoots.

And audiences began to adore his icy demeanor.

The Baker Street Trap

In 1939, he accepted the role that would make him immortal and at the same time destroy his dramatic career. Fox cast him in The Hound of the Baskervilles, and audience response was unanimous. Rathbone was the physical embodiment of Sherlock Holmes (just as Sidney Paget had drawn him in the original magazine stories).

He made fourteen films as the detective and recorded more than two hundred radio episodes playing the tenant at 221B Baker Street. But the typecasting was so brutal that producers stopped offering him other roles. In 1946, he decided to leave the character, tired of the repetition and of scripts that placed Holmes in World War II.

He tried to return to Broadway to restore his reputation as a serious actor. He won a Tony Award in 1948 for his work in The Heiress, but the stigma of the detective never went away. For newer generations, he was not a classically trained actor but simply the man with the deerstalker cap and the pipe.

Audiences no longer sought out the performer, they just wanted to see the character.

In his final years, he appeared in spoofs and low-budget horror films such as The Comedy of Terrors in 1963. He kept working until the end of his days to maintain the high standard of living that his wife, Ouida Bergère, expected at her famous Hollywood parties. He died of a heart attack at his New York home on July 21, 1967. His remains rest in a private crypt at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale.